


With Less Lament

by ArchaeopteryxDreams



Series: Dragon stories [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Disasters, Dragons, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Healing Magic, Hiding in Plain Sight, Magical Realism, Non-Explicit Injury, Non-Graphic Violence, Original Mythology, POV Female Character, Rescue Missions, Science Fiction & Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24946297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArchaeopteryxDreams/pseuds/ArchaeopteryxDreams
Summary: When the terrible dragon attacks again, elderly widow Eloise's home crumbles around her. That's when she meets the small, magical guardians she never knew she had.
Series: Dragon stories [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1805434
Kudos: 2





	With Less Lament

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published as part of an ebook short story collection in 2014, under another pen name.

In any time of fright, Eloise found it comforting to get her hands into the soil. Turning in a bit of fertilizer helped her rose bushes. Touching the earth kept her mind off the sky.

She looked to the sky anyway; the dragon advisory on the morning radio broadcast seemed louder each time she thought of it. Citizens are advised to keep calm and practice positive thinking. Avoid discussion of political events, religion and other divisive topics unless vitally necessary. In case of dragon sighting, seek shelter immediately.

She sighted only blue sky and clouds overhead. And she didn't talk about news stories or church, anyway. Eloise brushed her arthritis-bent fingers clean on her apron and stayed sitting in her garden. Coral-pink roses wagged, with bees humming between them. The breeze wafted by, warm as a full teacup but still a relief from summer's heat. It had been a lovely day so far today — now, if only everyone could enjoy the outdoors and stop feeding the sky devil.

No use thinking of that. The dragon was as inevitable as rain, or taxes. Eloise began to hum, aimlessly at first but then catching hold of a lively little swing tune. Her own voice filled her ears and the garden was alive around her. More bees hovered drunk between the flowers; that bold, red-throated hummingbird arrived, zipping over to a morning glory blossom hanging from the lattice. Digging more carefully — like she might bother the little darling with any human movement — Eloise kept up the tune. She had never heard of hummingbirds being especially friendly but this one was. He came closer sometimes, to buzz in the air and stare at her before darting away. It was nice to think that he liked a bit of music, too.

The hummingbird paused in front of her today. Not to stare at Eloise, though. More like he was listening for something. She hummed the chorus twice before she noticed: some omen hung in the air, a change in the weight of the day. She pushed off the warm grass, her joints all scolding together. Maybe she should check the radio, she thought, in case there was a new bulletin.

Then the wind turned. It reeked of oily smoke.

Too late for a bulletin. Eloise had to get somewhere safe. Had to get to the dragon shelter in the basement — those cinder block walls that Herbert laid, God rest his soul. Eloise couldn't run these days: she could only hurry her shuffling walk toward the porch steps that looked a mile away. The sky devil roared overhead, tearing the air like a thunderstorm.

She reached the porch door, the latch giving under her clumsy hands. Yes, be grateful for that, Eloise knew. Think kind thoughts and graceful emotions. Bad feelings fed the terror beast — but no one ever said good feelings couldn't drive it away, so God willing, maybe it was true.

She was at the basement stairs when the dragon struck, a screaming of wood and plaster. The house shook. Eloise was falling, grabbing for the door frame. The world came down.

She woke to darkness and hot-glowing pain. The dragon had finally come for her. Maybe she was in the next life, Eloise thought. She stayed unmoving, breathing in the taste of dust and wood and acrid ruin.

Something crackled at the far edge of her awareness. Eloise held her breath and welled up with terror, and felt bathwater tears on her face, and listened. More crackling sounds, like the house's shambles being dragged aside. It didn't sound like the dragon: whatever made the noise was plainly too small for that. Maybe someone come to rescue her, then.

“Help,” Eloise croaked, small under everything. “Please. I'm here!” Crackling, crackling. It didn't sound like a fireman's axe or a jaws-of-life machine. More like someone powerful was bending the entire house with mighty hands.

Against her howling headache, Eloise turned her head. Light poured in wider with each crackle, with each shifting of debris that used to be her house. There weren't any people coming for her — just a tiny dark spot in flight. A hummingbird. A tiny hummingbird in midair, thrumming closer.

“How did you,” Eloise breathed.

It tipped its head; light caught on feathers so fine they looked like fish scales. This was her red-throated friend.

More rubble crackled, this time above and around Eloise. Weight lifted off her and pain surged into her legs. She needed to get out, said a thought like a blunt nudge. Find shelter, safety.

She certainly didn't want to die here, she knew as she crawled toward white light. She didn't want to die at all. The hummingbird zipped away and hung in the dust-glittering air, waiting, watching her. Eloise lost sight of it as she coughed, as she dragged forward inches at a time.

Soon, the dirt and shambles were gone and Eloise reached dust-covered grass. She kept going, gasping in the daylight. She stopped when the deep breathing started to pinch inside her. Her friend still hung in the air on blurring wings, watching her. Eloise looked up at the whirring sound and maybe it was a trick of the light, but he had a presence in his eyes, a gleam nearly like intelligence.

_You-well-are?_

A voice — but Eloise couldn't tell where it had come from. She only knew that she heard it, clear as a glass bell. She turned on sore bones and couldn't see anyone, no rescuers — only rubble and shattered lattice and a gouge in the driveway. Her eyes caught on that: a cut through the asphalt, a good five feet down into the earth. That must have been from the dragon's claws. It had claws like big hooks, people said: the devil was built to kill.

A sudden sense of frustration, like a glimpse of someone else's heart. Then Eloise heard the voice again, saying are you alright?

“I-I'm—” She looked back to the hummingbird, the glittering jewel fixed in the air.

_Yes. You see correctly._

“I-I—” She gulped down a sound she might have made. “My head hurts. And my legs, too. Am I dead?”

He tilted his head. _No. I hope you won't soon be dead. You need to come with me. This way._

The hummingbird zipped ten feet away and kept staring at her. Ten feet that would be too far to walk on a bad arthritis day, never mind now. Eloise put a hand to her face, found it still wet and rubbed at it. “I-I don't think I can ...”

_You can. You must live. Please, hurry — before the beast returns._

He hovered over the plainest corner of the backyard, some simple crabgrass and azalea branches. There was no safety there. Yet the voice in Eloise's head seemed so sure. She gathered her fistful of strength and she pulled herself further inches.

Long minutes passed, making small bites of progress between the shrieking of her body. Eloise gripped at the grass now, soothing even though her palms were filmed with dust.

_This might be close enough_ , the hummingbird said. He flitted away, closer to the azalea bushes.

Eloise only closed her eyes for a moment, long enough to smear her tears away with the wrinkled back of her hand. But in that moment, something passed over her, warm as daylight. She was suddenly facing more hummingbirds, dozens of rainbow-feathered little creatures sitting on the grass and buzzing in the air. Most of them stared at her with the very same understanding eyes.

_You are shielded_ , her red-throated friend said, plain and proud. He flitted upward — and there was no sky overhead now, just a shimmering dome that swirled with gold hues when he tapped it with his beak. _None will find us here!_

An unseeable place: that thought sat leaden in Eloise's gut and she was too confused to say why. “I'm ... Are you an angel?”

He tilted his head again, and a realization splashed against Eloise's thoughts. _Oh, I still resemble a flitter-bird! Kyeh!_

Eloise was falling — a downward jolt of her senses. Like nearly falling asleep and catching her head mid-bob. When she blinked it away, her headache burned hotter but something different now hovered before her. A creature with slower-beating wings than a hummingbird, wings more like a bat's. He was sleek-shaped like a salamander, with spines on its head and feathers for clothes. He looked like a pretty Christmas ornament come to life and he still stared at her with dark, thinking eyes.

_It is necessary to use a glamour on ourselves, so we can hide. You saw-knew me as a flitter-bird. You like those birds, yes?_

“They're beautiful,” Eloise agreed. “You ... you must be an angel.” The strange sensation fluttered in her again — confusion as mild as milk.

_Kree, it doesn't matter. You are hurt._ His voice shifted into a hum Eloise could barely understand, distant like someone speaking on the telephone in the other room.

One creature — who hovering nearer than the others already — buzzed toward her and landed on her shoulder. Such a slight weight that she could barely feel it through her blouse. Then the headache began to drain, and her pain eased away into blue nothingness.

_We can fix your body_ , her friend said. _Flesh, wood, metal: they are almost the same. But we cannot fix your crying ..._

Eloise gulped and found some composure. “You're very kind,” she said. “I just ... I don't understand.” The creatures looked to one another; foreign thoughts and feelings flashed past in droves. Some turned away, busying themselves with glittering objects in their delicate foot-hands. Some kept watching Eloise, with considering looks cast at her hovering friend.

_You are not dead_ , he said. _And you are not seeing untruths. We live beside humans and cultivate the things you cannot understand. We are the—_

The word he used glanced off Eloise's mind, three syllables that just wouldn't fit. She was thinking suddenly of the stale smell of library books. The heraldry book she read once, full of thickly inked symbols from Eloise's own European ancestry. One shape stood clear in her mind: a proudly snarling dragon creature that pulled toward the escaping word.

“Wh ... Wyvern?” she murmured.

A crinkling of emotions, like her friend was frowning and smiling together. He said it again.

“Vyverna ...?”

_Near enough,_ he grumbled.

Another voice nudged in, weary but pleased. _Finished-I-am. Hurt-banished-is._ The scant weight on Eloise's back fluttered and was gone.

That vyverna really had banished the pain: she felt worlds better. Lighter, cleaner. Like she had slept the restoring sleep of a young woman. Eloise shifted her legs and watched them move, veined and spotted under tattered pantyhose but still legs she was grateful to have.

“Thank you,” she said. “But ... why?”

Her friend drifted lower, and landed on his little foot-hands in the dust-topped grass. Craning his sleek body, he looked up at Eloise — and into her, and through her. _You won't have to cry anymore._

They weren't people, not in the usual way. They had feelings somewhere in them but did they even know what crying was?

Yes, they did, Eloise recalled. She had sat in her garden with spade and fertilizer and she had showed them what crying was, those first weeks after she lost Herbert.

_Truth,_ her friend agreed. His gaze was steady.

“That's why the hummingbirds liked my roses and morning glories so much ...”

 _Not your flower-plants. Your singing._ His presence squirmed against Eloise's mind, like searching for words they shared. _This shield protecting us, and the healing in your bones ... We are stronger when song is in the air. You feed us in your garden-place. We can use that pureness of soul-feeling to strike at our dragon._

“What?” Eloise blurted. “You have a dragon, too?”

He made a sound through his mouth — a piercing trill that made the others turn toward him in rippling surprise.

_The dragon, the one that almost crush-killed you. Humans think the dragon is human-made!_ His speech faded briefly beyond words, a frustrated buzzing. _Blind-eyed fools. How can the dragon be human-made? You have put eyesight on the dragon, have you not? Or on your photopictures of the dragon?_

She had. Eloise knew of blurry newsreels and photographs, soaked into her mind even blurrier but still distinct enough to scare her. And then last month, the six o'clock news showed a computer-generated picture of the dragon, crisp-looking, ugly as all sin. It looked like a huge, clawed salamander with horns on its head, and webbed wings, and black pits for eyes. Like a devil-wrought form of this little friend sitting in front of Eloise now.

“No,” she breathed.

_The dragon is vyverna-made, the rolled-together monster of all our fears and fights. The dragon shows that truth in its body-shape. All this destruction, the loss of your home and the risk to your body-life: these are troubles you can credit to the vyverna._

That couldn't be. Dragons were the oldest fairy tale creatures around, the most fearful enemies of human heroes — and fairy tales had truth in them, didn't they? People wouldn't tell their children about Saint George and the dragon if it was someone else's monster to slay. And besides, these kind little creatures weren't anything like the sky devil. Eloise tried not to frown at her friend — but he couldn't be right.

“I'm not sure about that,” she said.

_Frah. It does not change our seeking-initiative, the fact of where the dragon came from. Eh-lo-ise._ He thought her name like pressing keys on an instrument he didn't know how to play. _We vyverna have helped you. We ask for your help given back._

“I— Yes. Of course.” She was laden with guilt, suddenly, for arguing over nothing.

We will protect you from more sky-harm, and we can repel the dragon this day. But we are few. We need fuel. Please sing for us.

What an odd time to want a song — in the middle of smoke and ruins, while the devil could still come back. But Eloise smoothed her dirt-smeared skirt and she sat there in the safe quiet, the fire truck sirens a muffled beat beyond the shining dome. She sat on grass and earth, the only real constants in her life; she was just one old woman with some tunes and tomes inside her.

She sang, quavering and small. Sang her favourite swing tune from when she was sixteen years old. Her friend's relief came, a feeling wrapping her up like a downy coat.

It grew easier as she fell into the music. Lively songs carried themselves. The slower love songs made her think of Herbert, and those ones didn't need to be carried at all. The gathered vyverna watched her with wise beads of eyes, arriving and leaving and bustling. Their conversations were a burbling beyond Eloise's understanding but she hardly noticed beyond her songs' lyrics.

When her voice began to rasp, she hummed instead. The vyverna bustled quicker yet calmer; they connected with Eloise's friend one by one, the many threads of a nearly-real web.

Human voices penetrated the dome now — the shouting voices of stout men searching the rubble of Eloise's home.

She stopped, and bowed her head. “I'm sorry. They're looking for me, my family must be worried ...”

 _We are stronger now,_ her little friend said. His salamander face was smooth and unchanging but Eloise thought she saw emotion in it, a happier angle to his eyes. _We will face our enemy this day._

Eloise flinched; a work boot fell beside her hand, distant through the dome but still only inches away. She curled that hand to her chest and found that she was tired and hungry, and so very present inside her trembling self. “Be careful,” she told them. “The dragon is dangerous, wherever it came from.”

_We will adventure-fly with great care. Thank you, Eh-lo-ise. Be well._

She rose uneasily, and the dome allowed her through. Standing on her own slushy legs, Eloise caught her head from bobbing — and then she was standing alone in tattered clothes, looking at the collapsed husk that used to be her house. Workers and firemen and neighbours swarmed around it like ants.

One of them shouted. Faces turned all toward her.

She pushed her legs forward and found them beginning to ache again.

She listened to radio news reports, that night she spent in the emergency shelter, wrapped in a thin but well-meant blanket. One soothing-voiced anchorman said that the dragon had ravaged the entire tri-state area today, in the worst attack in decades. Hundreds dead. Billions of dollars in damages. But suddenly, it had begun acting strangely; it had thrashed far above the city like it felt a sword in its flesh; it roared and clawed at the air. Then it vanished. Returned to wherever it stayed when it wasn't menacing humanity.

Returned to Hell, Eloise thought. But she was less sure of that than she had been yesterday.

She asked one of the nice young volunteers for a cup of tea. Eloise missed her garden already; she wondered when she could get back to it and see if her rose bushes were alright, if any coral-pink blossoms were left in the ruins.

She pulled the blanket tight around her. Just in case anyone was listening, she hummed a tune.


End file.
